


Persona Goetica

by penitence_road



Category: Persona Series, 機動戦士ガンダム 鉄血のオルフェンズ | Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans
Genre: Alternate Universe - Persona Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-17 19:57:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16102706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penitence_road/pseuds/penitence_road
Summary: A chance meeting proves to be more serious than expected. Orga and Mikazuki are drawn into the Sea of Souls, and afterward, nothing about their everyday lives will be the same.





	Persona Goetica

**Author's Note:**

> Being a few scenes from a Gundam IBO/Persona fusion with I’ve been bouncing around ideas for. Mikazuki, Orga, Kudelia, and the beginning of everything.

**They are embodiments of greed.  They would take her from you.**

_I don’t know her_ , _Mikazuki thinks, or tries to think, the words flutter-faint against the battering in his skull._

**She would be merely the first.  He would be next.  Then the girl.**

_Orga’s cocksure grin, and Atra’s soft eyes.  The hurt in Mikazuki’s chest blossoms into rage, a familiar red flower.  No._

**They are those who would tear all bonds asunder, friend from friend, kin from kin.  Will you allow this?**

_His head throbs, pain like someone kicking on a bruise. His throat burns with ragged breaths._

**For those whom you adore, will you stand?**

_YES.  Just give it to me already…  The other voice laughs, the reverberation buzzing through his teeth.  Pain, bright white, draws a line across the back of his right hand, then another, and then more, a molten metal scald._

**Then call me forth to do battle once again.  Call me by my true name—**

“Come to me.  _Barbatos!_ ”

* * *

Kudelia’s hands grip his elbow like a lifeline, and her strange eyes are probably huge and round, but Orga can’t look—not at her, not at the Gjallarhorn flunkies in their weird suits, not at anything other than Mikazuki’s slim shoulders and the shape towering in front of them, taller than a man, taller than three men, over halfway to the distant curve of the ceiling.  A crash of metal on metal echoes through the canal, the sound of shifting armor as the _thing_ dives forward, a mace the size of a transport freight taking shape in its hands.    

It’s white, impossibly white, sharp as a crescent moon, but its legs are streaked with a burning sunset red, wide vertical gashes like open wounds; the same color lays over its shoulders like burning epaulets.  A devil tail—an actual devil tail, Orga’s brain repeats as he stares, open-mouthed—lashes behind it, and crooked golden horns branch out and back from its forehead, slicing trails through the conduit’s ever-present cloaking mist. 

Blue light ripples over the water as the remaining Gjallarhorn soldiers reopen their portal and dive through it just before the mace swings a second time.  The massive phantom’s tail dashes against the water when its attack hums through empty air, the glow of its armor illuminating the cascading spray.  In the lambent haze, Orga can just make out the thing’s features—a sharp hook of a nose, a curving red beard split around a white-toothed grin, and narrow eyes that drip green flames like a flare stack tower. 

“Persona…” Kudelia breathes from beside him. 

Orga stares, numbly. 

The thing’s eyes burn the same color as the intricate circle glowing on the back of Mikazuki’s hand. 

* * *

     _\--two days ago--_

The girl staggers out of the alley, trips on the uneven concrete, and collapses without fanfare into Orga’s arms.  Not quite prepared for it, he stumbles, but she weighs next to nothing, for all that her wide dress (brilliant red in the gloom, trimmed with ruffles) and long ponytail (bright blond and wider across than her thin shoulders, if a bit bedraggled) threaten to drown him in fabric and hair.  Steadying himself, Orga braces one hand against the girl’s back to keep her in place, then turns his head back over his shoulder. 

“Who is she?”  Mikazuki paces steadily up from behind him, looking first at the girl, then back at Orga. 

“Like I’d know?” Orga grouses, then looks back at the girl when she shifts, a low cry breaking in her throat.  

Glazed eyes— _purple_ , who has _purple_ eyes?—stare up into his own and narrow as she searches him for—something, but there’s no recognition in her face, just confusion and the shadow of something desperate.  Homeless kids when they first come into the dockyard, Biscuit when the latest paycheck is short again, even Orga’s own face in the mirror, some nights—yeah, he knows that expression. 

“I—I have to tell you something,” the girl manages, her voice unsteady.  At Orga’s elbow, Mika draws closer, dark head tilting. 

“…Yeah?”  He was going to suggest bringing her home—because there’s no way someone wearing a dress that fancy isn’t attached to an address, an uptown address that might have some reward posted for missing daughters—but this is just weird enough to catch his attention first. 

“No…” she murmurs, gaze flickering away and back again, restless as a gnat.  A bead of sweat runs down Orga’s back as he stands there, arms full of stranger, in the summer heat radiating off the city like the memory of an argument.  “I have to tell— _everyone_ something.  It’s—I can’t remember, but…” 

She goes on mumbling to herself, and Orga and Mika share a heavier look. 

“Heat stroke?” Mika proposes, eyeing the girl’s long sleeves and waves of hair. 

“Could be not enough food.”  At Mika’s skeptical frown, he adds, “I know, but she hardly weighs anything.  Maybe she’s a runaway?”

“ _Please_ ,” the girl breaks back in, and for all that she’s a featherweight, her fingers clutching at his shoulder suddenly feel like iron bands.  Orga jumps at the turnaround.  “Please, people have to know—!” 

“Okay, okay…  Lets just take her back to our place for now.  And—not tell the bosses just yet.”  He gives Mikazuki a harried look, to which Mika just nods, giving a sage hum.

“I’ll call Atra,” he pronounces.  “She’ll know what to do.”

**Author's Note:**

> Just a one-shot for now, but I have notes for more if there's any interest. It draws most heavily from Persona 5, but there are definitely elements from 3 and 4 as well.


End file.
